Thursday, May 21, 2009

Dr. Jim West's "even higher comedy"

"I think that Greg's Post was oddly funny. I think it was oddly funny in the way that it was high comedy. I think comedy has to come from an oddly funny place if it's high comedy."

Now I'm being just as silly,

but doesn't Dr. Jim West sound like Alicia Silverstone speaking plainly, more or less:

"I think that Clueless was very deep. I think it was deep in the way that it was very light. I think lightness has to come from a very deep place if it's true lightness."

?


4 comments:

Jim said...

does that make me and alicia 'homeys'????? (homies?) (home-ies)? i'm never sure what it is.

Jim said...

oh and by the by, your 'quote' of my remark isnt what i said. i think you just made that stuff up and attributed it to me!

for shame, miss, for shame!!!!

;-)

J. K. Gayle said...

Of course I did. Made it up, that is, and attributed it to you nonetheless. I was laughing so loudly reading your post, what else could I do. Thanks for playing along! Now, if only Alicia would drop by...

J. K. Gayle said...

and speaking of "homies" (which Malcolm X may have helped coin), didn't Aristotle have something to say about "high comedy"?

ἡ κωμῳδία . . . ἀπὸ τῶν ἐξαρχόντων . . . τῶν τὰ φαλλικὰ ἃ ἔτι καὶ νῦν ἐν πολλαῖς τῶν πόλεων διαμένει νομιζόμενα.
--Poetics 1449a

William Hamilton Fyfe renders that:

"[C]omedy . . . came from the prelude . . . to the phallic songs which still survive as institutions in many cities."

but since I've already messed with your words. . . didn't Aristotle really say this?

"The boisterous musical dramas of the village . . . have their beginnings . . . in what’s blatantly p****-esque, which is still the sexist rule that currently remains as the penetrating force in many of the city-states."

After all, Aristotle's phrase is (A) ἡ [‘he, the Greek article], (B) κωμ [kom, a Greek morpheme meaning ambiguously “reveling” and/or “village”], and (C) ῳδία [odes, which is the transliteral, technical name for Greek lyric poetry].

Funny light deep clueless stuff, I suppose.